I Came for You: An Outlaw Love Song
by Civilized Lee
Summary: Scarlett and Nisha cope with the legacy their parents left them. A story of how Nisha's mother died, how Scarlett lost her leg, and the power that keeps them alive through it all. [content warning: past child abuse]
1. I'll Be There for You

**A/N:** For those of you who follow me on AO3, you've already seen this. Hadn't published it here on FFnet mainly because I wasn't sure I was going to finish it. Now that I know I will, I'm cross-posting here. As always, thanks for reading and commenting.

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"The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worth dying for."

— Henry Home, Lord Kames

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"My mom's dead."

Those words should taste like honey in Nisha's mouth. She should be _singing_. But for all the prolonged and painful deaths she imagined for her mother, the reality didn't live up. Maybe it could only ever pale in comparison to the sixteen years of hell her mother put her through.

Scarlett's chipper voice bursts out into song, and Nisha grumbles. "Ding dong, the bitch is dead! Y'know, I've got some rum I've, eh, _borrowed_ and stashed away for a special occasion, and I would say this _definitely_ qualifies. Come on, then!"

Nisha glares at Scarlett until she slinks back down into the wooden bench behind her. Nisha resumes pacing, shimmering snow crunching under her boots.

"Oh...kay," Scarlett chews her bottom lip and rubs the back of her neck. "Clearly, I'm missing something here. Help me out? It... it was _you_ who killed her, yeah?"

"The hell do you think, Red?" Nisha snaps, then exhales sharply through her nose. It's a wonder Scarlett would even ask. Nisha stares out towards the rising sun, eyes shaded by the brim of her lavender ridge top. "If I did, I'd be dancing on the slag's corpse."

In a way, it was so like her mother to die like this. Only fitting she would even find a way that would deny Nisha the gratification. Nisha reaches into her pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes and taps one out, trying to ignore the heavy sigh she draws from Scarlett.

"Those things'll kill you, y'know," Scarlett says, her voice a half-step quieter than usual.

Nisha lets out an annoyed sigh. Scarlett's starting to sound like her dad – the absolute _last_ thing she needs to deal with. "Just 'cause _you _quit don't mean you get to be all high 'n mighty on me." She flicks her lighter and holds the end of the cigarette to the flame. "'Sides, it just takes off the years at the end. And those suck, anyway."

"Really, now, I thought we were going to grow old and senile together!"

Despite herself, Nisha lets out a chuckle at the thought of Scarlett, aged seventy years, hair white as the snow she's standing in. If she lived to see it, Nisha would probably still call her Red. "Ugh. You imagine that? Us, all arthritic and wrinkly and gray?"

Scarlett flips her hair over her shoulder. "Oh, I think I'd age rather gracefully, really." A smirk spreads over her lips as she leans back into the bench. "I'd be what they call 'distinguished'."

"Uh huh." She knows she's setting herself up when she glances over and sees Scarlett smirking back at her, but decides to humor her anyway. "And me?"

Scarlett studies Nisha from head to toe for a moment, then tilts her head to the side. "Well... you'd have plenty of interesting stories to tell," she says with a wink.

Nisha raises her cigarette to her lips to hide her smirk as she looks back to the horizon. "Asshole."

Nisha watches as the smoke from her breath mingles with the cold winter air. She looks down at the cigarette hanging loosely between her fingers, her free hand tugging at the sleeve of her jacket. The acrid odor of tobacco and her cigarette's orange glow drag her out of the cold, back to their old plastic kitchen table, pitted and worn from when Nisha's anxious fingernails would dig and pick at its surface. Her wrist laid flat against the tabletop, her mother's bony hand clamping it in place. Calculating mahogany eyes probing her, daring her to protest. Fat, glowing cigar in her other hand. Grinds its glowing end into the crook of Nisha's elbow. The pain radiates in hot spears all through the length of her arm. But she didn't give the bitch the satisfaction of screaming.

Nisha didn't even avoid her mother's irate gaze. She just channeled all that scorching heat, all that rage into a scornful glare at her mother's blurred face. Amidst the grunts and shallow breaths escaping Nisha's clenched teeth was a single word, maybe the only word that could bring Nisha any solace when she looked at her mother's dispassionate face: _Someday_...

The cigarette drops from her fingers into the snow. She grinds it under her heel. Jaw clenched, she crushes the pack of cigarettes in her hand and, with a shout, hurls it into a snowbank.

"Whoa, hey there." Scarlett gets up from the bench and walks behind Nisha, slowly putting her arms around her. "It's okay. You'll be alright."

"Oh, don't you start with this shit! Not _you_, Red!" Nisha breaks Scarlett's hug, and kicks a clump of snow into powder. "It's not— she doesn't get to just _die_ like this!"

Drowning, even in a freezing lake, was too good for her mother. There was no justice in her dying from some freak accident. Nisha balls her hands into fists, heat rising in her face from knowing she'll never watch the light fade from those hollow eyes as she crushes her mother's windpipe under her thumbs.

"No. She was supposed to die because of _me_," Nisha says, looking into Scarlett's concerned eyes. "She was supposed to die knowing _I won_!"

Scarlett's lips move soundlessly, and Nisha sighs and turns away. She's not sure why she expected Scarlett to understand. What does she know? She'd only _seen_ the bruises on her ribs, the burn marks on her arms. She never _lived_ the fear. She never tasted the indignity of having to lie down and take every beating as if it were her due, knowing the sooner she accepted it, the sooner it would be over. She never felt the life leave her sister's frail hand, or the stab in the chest when her mother stood over her, looked her dead in the eye, and said, "Why wasn't it you?"

Nisha sits on the cold bench, takes in a slow breath, then closes her eyes as they start to sting with the rage welling in her throat. She rests her forehead on her palms. Part of her wishes Scarlett would mock her for crying. At least then something would feel _normal_.

Instead, Scarlett sits at her side. Nisha's back tenses as Scarlett slowly puts her arm around her shoulders. Despite Scarlett's comforting air, Nisha finds herself shying away from the contact. "I get it, okay?" Scarlett says.

Nisha bites her lip. Bullshit.

"With everything I saw her put you through, I get it. But... she's dead. And now... now, you don't have to be afraid anymore."

"Dammit, Red, I wasn't _afraid_ of her—"

"For hell's sake," Scarlett mutters, shaking her head. "She's gone. You can live free of her now."

A slow breath escapes Nisha's lips as her gaze drifts off towards the snow-covered mountains to the west. If only it were that simple. Her mother may be dead, but she is far from gone. And a deep shadow in Nisha tells her that her she never will be.

"You're here now," Scarlett says, leaning into Nisha. "She's not. That's what matters."

"Yeah, but—"

"You're _here_," Scarlett says, putting a finger to Nisha's lips, "and that's _all_ that matters."

Nisha takes off her hat, wrings its brim in her hands, and allows Scarlett to run a gentle hand along her hair. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Nisha wasn't supposed to be left with the legacy of the victim. All she wanted, all she _needed_, was to take on that power.

Even if only for one moment.

Scarlett puts her hand to the side of Nisha's head and cradles her against her own shoulder. "Listen to me just this once, okay? This isn't about winning or losing. This isn't even about surviving. This is about _living_. The only power she has over you now is the power that you give her."

Loathe as Nisha is to admit it even to herself, Scarlett may not be completely wrong. This is just the kind of legacy her mother would want to leave behind: to keep her a prisoner of her own self-doubt. Wasting too much breath on her mother is only doing a disservice to herself. She clears her throat and slowly puts her hat back on.

"Thanks, Red," she says, doing her best to keep her voice steady. "Dunno where I'd be without ya."

"Well, I do: you'd be lost without me, naturally. Wandering aimlessly, like a helpless baby chick that fell out of its nest and hasn't quite teased out how to fly." She grins and claps Nisha on the shoulder. "S'alright. No need to admit it! Your soulful glances say more than your words ever could."

Nisha chuckles at Scarlett's toothy grin, then elbows her sharply in the side. "If you don't bite your tongue, I might do it for ya."

The corner of Scarlett's mouth slowly curls up further, exposing a pointed canine. "Don't threaten me with a good time."

Nisha laughs and glances down, her face flushing. She slowly stands up and glances back at Scarlett, her nose almost as red as her hair. "C'mon. It's freezing out here."

"Yeah." Scarlett stretches and stands up. "Reckon your dad will be wondering where you got to."

Nisha shrugs. Her father was in his bedroom when she left a few hours ago, and she doubts he's so much as moved since then. For reasons she's sure she'll never understand, she knows her father really did love his wife. "I think he needs more time to himself."

"Well, I guess you'd know better than I would." Scarlett kicks at the snow, then glances up at Nisha. "So where are we going?"

Nisha quirks an eyebrow at Scarlett. "Still got that rum?"

Scarlett grins and nods. "A fine choice."

The two set off side by side and walk for awhile in silence. Nisha's thoughts keep turning back to the lake her mother's body was found in. _Drowning_. Something seemed off about it. It'd be one hell of an accident. And she knows her mother wouldn't have just jumped in herself – not without murdering Nisha and her father first.

"Can't believe she's dead," Nisha says, glancing up. Even with slate clouds blotting out most of the sky, the day seems a little brighter than before. "Finally."

Scarlett nods and looks off towards the horizon. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer person."

"Yeah. Still." Nisha clenches her fists, and her throat tightens. "Wish I coulda seen the bitch's face when she went. Hope she suffered."

Scarlett hums. "Well if it's any consolation, I hear drowning is one of the most painful ways to go."

Nisha lets out an amused hum. Then the back of her head tingles, and she slows to a stop, as Scarlett walks on unaware. She takes a few shallow breaths, the blood pounding in her neck. _No, no, no_. She _must_ have mentioned it to Scarlett at _some_ point... or maybe she read it on the ECHOnet – but no, there wouldn't even be any news on it, not _this _soon. There _has _to be...

Feeling the warmth leave her face and the air escape her lungs, Nisha looks up at Scarlett, some ten paces ahead.

That _cunt_.

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Scarlett rubs her hands together and blows into them, studying the ground beneath her. Nisha will be alright. She might need time to adjust, but she'll be okay. Nisha's a survivor, always has been. And until then, Scarlett will be whatever kind of friend she needs to be. Just as she's always been. Then Scarlett frowns, noticing Nisha isn't walking beside her anymore.

Something hard slams into Scarlett's back, and she falls face-first into the snow, a heavy weight crushing down onto her. The impact stings across her chest as Nisha growls low in her ear. "_You_ killed her!?"

While Scarlett fights to get her erratic breathing under control, Nisha rolls her over and punches her in the jaw. Numbing electricity spikes through the side of her face and down her neck.

"Start talkin'."

Sucking in a slow, pained breath, Scarlett tries to push herself free, but Nisha forces her forearm down onto Scarlett's chest, pinning her. "I-I-I don't—"

"Bullshit. You're an awful liar and we both know it." Her menacing orange eyes glower down at Scarlett. "I never told you she _drowned_, and you've been with me the whole time since I found out."

"Nisha, it's not what you think!" She pushes up against her arm and grunts. "Just calm down, yeah?"

Scarlett's eyes go wide. She regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth, but she regrets them more when Nisha's fist smashes into her nose.

Scarlett raises her arms to defend herself as Nisha straightens up and starts raining blows. A hard punch to her side, another stings her already throbbing jaw, then Nisha grabs her by the jacket, yanks and slams her into the ground. "You _killed_ her! After _all_ the _times_ I talked about getting BACK at her?!"

Yelping with each hit, Scarlett grabs onto Nisha's wrists and struggles to keep her hands at bay. "Nisha, please—!"

She wheezes as the sharp bone of Nisha's knee drives down into her sternum. Struggling for air, she lets go of Nisha's arms and tries to push her weight off. Nisha's hands clamp onto Scarlett's wrists and slam them into the ground. "You _knew_!" She leans down and snarls, baring her teeth. "You knew, and you killed her anyway!"

Nisha lets go of her wrists, then clamps her wiry fingers around Scarlett's throat. Her lungs burning and eyes stinging with tears, Scarlett raises a hand to Nisha's wrist, digging her fingernails weakly into her skin, but Nisha keeps squeezing. She lifts her other hand up, trying to push Nisha away, but Nisha keeps squeezing. As the drilling pain in her chest dulls to a throb, Scarlett's peripheral vision starts to turn to black, and the violet fades from Nisha's coat, leaving it a faded charcoal.

If her windpipe wasn't being crushed, Scarlett thinks she might be laughing. She's always admired Nisha's ferocity. But if it ever got her into any _real _trouble, she always pictured Nisha being the one dying at her side in a blaze of glory, not squeezing her final breath out of her. Serves her right, really. The _one_ time she goes out of her way to do something nice for somebody...

Just as the color starts to fade from Nisha's irises, the fury in them falters too, and she abruptly lets go of Scarlett's throat and sits back. Scarlett takes in a desperate breath, then coughs violently. She looks over at Nisha, her tangerine eyes still as icy as the snow soaking Scarlett's back. "You selfish ass!" she rasps.

Standing up, Nisha shoots her an incredulous look. "Me?! What about you? How could you do this to me?"

"To _you_?! Do what – save your life?!" With some effort, Scarlett pushes herself to one knee and spits the metallic taste out of her mouth. A streak of blood stains the white snow. "I spared you the anguish of realizing you'd never be able to do it yours—"

Nisha's boot slams into Scarlett's side, knocking her back to the ground. "So you think I'm a coward! Is that it?"

Scarlett groans and collapses onto her stomach, the sharp tingling pain shooting all the way down to her legs. It shouldn't be asking too much to expect a little gratitude. "No. Not a coward." Through grit teeth, she spits out, "She _broke_ you."

Nisha's jaw clenches. She jabs a finger at Scarlett and growls through grit teeth. "I don't need you protecting me!"

"She would have killed you! You _must_ know that! And you and I both know you weren't going to do a damn thing about it!"

Nisha's jaw quivers. For a moment, Scarlett can't tell if it's from her murderous rage, or if she's getting to her. She gets her answer when Nisha screams incoherently up at the sky. "_Why_, Scarlett?"

Her chest still stinging all over, Scarlett gingerly pushes herself to her knees. As she watches Nisha wear a track in the snow, Scarlett wonders how it was that while Nisha never followed through on her plans to stand up to her mother, she had no problem nearly choking the life out of _her_, and staring into her eyes while she did it.

After the echoes of that question fade out in her mind, another question comes to mind, quieter, but clearer: why did she_ stop_?

Nisha rubs the back of her head, avoiding Scarlett's gaze. Her voice trembles, the rage quickly falling away. "I mean, you _knew_. You knew that I wanted to – that I _had_ to..." Her lips move soundlessly as her bloodshot eyes find Scarlett's. "Is it 'cause you didn't care?"

Scarlett's throat hitches. She'd rather Nisha keep beating her than have to hear _that_. "You know that's not why," she says, getting to her feet. "You know you weren't the only one who wanted to see the bitch dead."

"That wasn't _your_ decision to make," Nisha spits with a jab of her finger.

"Then what was I supposed to do?" Scarlett scoffs in disbelief. "Ignore all those silent cries for help? Stand by and wait 'til she killed you?"

Scarlett exhales slowly, looking past Nisha's clenched jaw and furrowed brows. Nisha's angry façade might have fooled her in the past, but now Scarlett can see the fear behind it all. The fear that every word she says is true.

Scarlett rubs her forehead and sighs. Even seeing that fear, here Scarlett stands, ready to lash out at her. And they both know – it's written all over Nisha's face – that if Scarlett _really_ wanted to hurt her, she could. Maybe worse than anybody else would be able to. "Come here," she murmurs, taking a slow step forward. Nisha leans back slightly, but holds her ground. Scarlett closes the distance and hugs her, and Nisha stiffens in her arms.

"Come–" Nisha sighs. "C'mon, Red, what is this?"

"It's a _hug_, you pillock." She puts a hand to the back of Nisha's head. "Surely you've been hugged before."

"Don't get smart."

She keeps her arms wrapped around her and soothes her hair until she feels the tension start to leave Nisha's back. She knows it's not Nisha lashing out at her, it's her mother. A mother who took every opportunity to tell her daughter that nobody could ever love such an ungrateful little shit. A person can only be told she's worthless so many times until she'll start to believe it.

"I could've... I could've done it, you know?" Nisha whispers. "I could've killed her."

Scarlett sighs. It doesn't take her long to think of something reassuring to tell her. "Shh shh. I know. I know you could have."

As the words come out of her mouth, Scarlett realizes the best lie she could ever tell is convincing people she's bad at it. But as she pulls away and looks at the cracks in Nisha's stained-glass eyes, she knows all that really matters is that Nisha believes her.

She isn't sure how long they stand there together, holding each other as if they were each afraid the other might dissolve should they ever let go. Scarlett only realizes that it's started snowing by the time Nisha speaks again.

"C'mon." Nisha brushes her thumb against Scarlett's lip, then wipes her hand on her jacket. "You must be freezing. I did tackle you into a snowbank."

Scarlett chuckles. "Maybe a little chilly. Don't suppose you'd be interested in keeping me warm on the walk back?"

Nisha replies with a raised eyebrow.

"No? Well." Scarlett grins playfully. "Can't blame a girl for trying."

Nisha gives her a light (for Nisha's standards) jab on the shoulder, and the two of them set off back to town, side by side, accompanied by the crunching of snow under their boots. Scarlett lets her mind drift as she studies the bare-limbed trees lining the pathway. The scarce rays of sunlight peeking through the clouds hit the ice clinging to the trees' limbs, shining through in a soft spectrum of color. Scarlett tries to ignore how close she came to never seeing it.

Nisha clears her throat. "Scarlett?"

Scarlett raises her eyebrows at her. "'Scarlett'? What, no 'Red'? Are you about to get _real_ with me, Nisha?"

Nisha sighs and presses on. "Look. I'm not really good at this whole... _feelings_ thing. And..." She trails off, shaking her head, muttering too low for Scarlett to hear.

"Oh, come now." Scarlett grins and nudges her with an elbow. "It's alright! I promise I won't let anybody else know you even _have _feelings, much less expressed them."

"Look. I just wanted to tell you... sorry that I almost—"

"Bup bup bup." Scarlett holds up a finger and presses it to Nisha's lips. "Stop right there. You don't need to say anything else. I just... I want to cherish this moment."

Nisha raises an eyebrow at her, then looks down at her finger.

"I mean, I've known you for, what, four years now..." Scarlett flashes her a lopsided grin and lets her hand fall back to her side. "And I don't think you have ever genuinely apologized to me for anything before now."

Nisha purses her lips together in an attempt to hide a smile. "Well, in that case, forget it."

Scarlett puts her arm around Nisha's shoulders. "Seriously, though. No apology necessary. I'll be there for you 'til I die. Even if that means taking the occasional beating."

"Aw, what, _this_?" Scarlett flinches as Nisha brushes a knuckle against her tender jaw. "Trust me, Red. This was _nothin_'."


	2. Old Flames

The roar of the crowd in the stadium above is little more than background noise in the entrance tunnel at the base of the Underdome. Scarlett sharpens her hook, casting a glance around with her good eye at the other competitors. Some of them are straight-faced, in a pre-battle trance; some are muttering incoherently to themselves. Then there's the ones she can't read, hiding their faces behind a mask. Scarlett clicks her tongue. Masks, really? Have a little showmanship! Flash a blood-spattered smile at the camera drones as you stand victorious atop a mound of corpses!

The house music drops as the showrunner introduces the next billed competitor. Scarlett heaves a sigh, adjusting the bandana sitting atop her head. Moxxi's running through the names quickly, and it's still taking forever. Lots of fighters tonight, maybe the most there's ever been. It doesn't particularly surprise her. She's one of the newcomers, after all. How many of them are here for the same reason she is?

Her eyes fall on an absolute behemoth of a man, dressed in ironclad armor, wielding a hefty anchor in each hand. Seems impractical, but she'll give him a wide berth anyway. She's not here to make new enemies.

Her roaming thoughts are put on hold as she catches Moxxi announcing another fighter. "...single-handedly brought down three Crimson Lance assassins..."

_Oh! Single-handed, my ass_. No surprise she and Deadeye Thomas didn't make it into the story. Still, it brings her some amount of joy that Moxxi said nothing about him being a captain anymore. Why else would he be in one of these competitions? Only fools who lost their fortunes or their minds would bid their life on a cash prize.

Except Scarlett, of course. She has her own noble reasons. The money, well, that's just gravy.

"...the notorious pirate, you know his name! Seven-Finger Nils!"

Scarlett rolls her eye. That name worked so much better two fingers ago. Then again, her father has always been stubbornly resistant to change. Just look how he took it when she mutinied.

An explosive roar of the crowd signals the start of the first round. Scarlett sits on a nearby ammo crate, not sure if she's hoping her father will live through it or not. Some other fool offing him would at least save her the trouble, but then she really wants to see the look of defeat on his scarred face as he draws his last ragged breath.

It's all moot, though. She's seen enough of these type of shows to know the top competitors always make it through the first few rounds. It's more about fooling the crowd into thinking there could be an upset. She always liked watching these more for the spectacle than the barbarity. Not that the latter wasn't fun, too. Though the theatrics of this match, she thinks, rather leave something to be desired. She hasn't heard any particularly interesting stage names yet. Seven-Finger Nils? The Undertaker? The Lawbringer? Black Hand Beatrice? So unimaginative! Where's the personality, the panache? She's rather proud of her own nickname. At least she earned it.

The light above the blast door in front of her strobes, bathing the tunnel in red light. Moxxi's voice booms over the loudspeaker. "She's spread a swath of slaughter from Eunomia to Lemuria, iiiiiit's Scaaaaaaarlett the Hyeeeeeeeena!"

Right, battle plan. First, don't get killed. Second, take the high ground. Third, orchestrate a long-overdue family reunion. Last, _don't get killed_.

The doors open, smoke pouring in from the machines on the ceiling, and Scarlett steps through to the cheers of the crowd. She only takes a second to soak in the view from the ground. The ring of lights, flashing bright blues, purples, and greens (along with the single pale blue ring of Helios) encircle the top of the stadium above the packed bleachers of bloodthirsty spectators. It looks so different from up in the stands, but she still has a good working memory of the layout.

She uses the cover of the entrance smoke to duck behind a nearby shipping container, which at this point in its life is more rust than metal. The top plateau is her goal, overlooking most of the rest of the gully, but it'll be an uphill battle – literally. A peek around the corner of her cover tells her that a few bandits have taken refuge in the scaffolding that sits in the shadow of Moxxi's tower, in the middle tier of the arena. She sets her sights on a path circling up the earthen tower overlooking the rest of the arena. The dirt on the way up is stained rusty with blood.

Head on a swivel, she ducks out from behind the old container. Keeping low and moving quick, she makes her way along the no man's land, hugging close to the rock wall that reaches up to the plateau above her to her left. She takes out two unsuspecting bandits, tussling with a few skags, with two quick shots from Greed. She pauses, watching the skags sniffing at the air, looking in her direction. The skags lower their heads, and start chewing on the dead bandits. She lets out an amused snort and keeps moving.

Scarlett doubts there's anybody better suited to gladiator combat than she is. Constant vigilance with a healthy dose of paranoia come naturally to her. She learned to watch her back from working at her mother's inn by the bay, long before she ever knew who her father was. She'd dealt with so many drunks, thieves, mercs and perverts working there that finally joining her father's crew was business as usual. With, surprisingly enough, _less_ sexual harassment than what she dealt with at the inn – at least, after she cut off Ace Manley's hand for getting a little too grabby.

Piracy also taught her perhaps the most important lesson she'd ever learned: never be afraid to run away. Hard to count stacks of cash when you're being sucked out of an airlock. She can hear Mum now. _You must have learned that one from your father_.

Moxxi introduces several more combatants (Scarlett finds herself smirking in approval at whoever calls himself Sandman – not terribly creative, but she finds the spin on the bedtime tale amusing) as several more red-flashing doors open around the arena, each accompanied by its own pouring of smoke. A few round metal shacks sit in front of her, but her focus is singular. She turns left, heading up the earthen ramp.

To her left stands the great scaffolding platform that overlooks the two lower tiers of the arena. A long ramp leads up to its top, some thirty feet above the dirt. A few bruisers stand at the top of the ramp, guarding a pair of bandits with wild, spiked, bleached blonde hair, both of them shouting wildly at each other, both of them with a sniper rifle in their hands. No sign of dear old Dad yet, but getting atop that platform would help her spot him a lot easier. Not to mention, he would only have one way to get at her. She keeps close to the metal supports, out of view of the pair on top, and skirts around its footprint, pausing when she reaches the base of the ramp. Straight ahead of her are several towering remnants of an Atlas ship – escape pods, she thinks. Several dead bodies are strewn about, with several more gladiators camped around, taking cover where they can find it. One of the fighters, hugging tight to the steel of one of the escape pods, pops his head out. Almost immediately, there's the loud crack of a gun, and his head jerks back, blood spraying out in a mist behind him.

She gives a sidelong glance up the ramp. The two jokers up top seem more intent on fighting with each other than taking aim at anyone down here. Scarlett sneaks up behind a man in old armor, patchwork pieces scrapped from old Lance soldiers. All the protection in the world couldn't save him from a shot from Greed at the base of his skull. He goes limp instantly and falls to the ground. Almost too easy. She takes his spot hugging the escape pod, and catches the crazed shouting of one of the more psychotic bandits. "Gonna shove that bayonet up your—"

Scarlett pops out around the corner, gun raised. She takes her finger off the trigger as she looks down her sights at a woman clad in a full-length duster and wide-brimmed hat, both the same shade of unmistakable lavender.

Nisha.

Scarlett lowers her gun to her side. She nearly can't believe it, even though a part of her realizes that for Nisha, a place like this is _home_.

Blood spurts and stains Nisha's purple sleeve as she pulls her revolver's bayonet out of a limp psycho's chest. The psycho collapses to the ground, her buzzaxe lying forgotten by her twitching hand. Nisha fires a single shot into the side of the bandit's head.

Time seems to slow down as Nisha turns her head, her tangerine eyes locking onto Scarlett's. Greed weighs so heavy in Scarlett's hand that her arm may as well be chained to the ground. Her blood races through her heart and hammers against the arteries in her neck as she stands rooted to the spot. Her mind screams at her to do something, _any_thing: speak out, run for cover, but instead she just stares.

She studies the dead look on Nisha's face, trying to decide if she's daring Scarlett to raise her gun and shoot, or if she already knows Scarlett won't. Then in one fluid motion, Nisha raises her revolver and fires. The crack of the revolver freezes Scarlett's heart in her chest.

The crowd erupts in a raucous cheer.

Something heavy thuds in the dirt behind Scarlett, nudging her right boot. She looks down and sees a shirtless bandit lying on his side, a bullet hole between the eyes of his mask. She looks back up at Nisha, who is storming right at her with long, brisk strides, duster billowing out behind her. She manages to push out a disbelieving whisper, "Nisha—"

Her tone is as flat as her expression. "Not. Now."

Scarlett steps to the side as Nisha brushes past her, a revolver in each hand. She calls out to her again, but Nisha is already running past the escape pods. Scarlett starts to follow her, but a crack from a sniper rifle above sends her back behind the pod, taking Nisha out of her line of sight.

Scarlett would be tempted to believe she was never there, that it was just an illusion, but she caught a whiff of her as she passed by. Her scent, unmistakeable, like sanded wood and the sea. It was real.

One of the bruisers at the top of the scaffolding fires his shotgun down at Scarlett, snapping her out of her trance. With its wide spread, her shield is able to eat what little hits her. "Get your ass gone!" he shouts, and Scarlett is all too happy to oblige.

Nisha. _Nisha!?_ Goddammit. How long had it been? Sometimes that night on Peitho feels like a lifetime ago. Sometimes, when Scarlett closes her eyes at just the right moment in the evening sun, it feels like it was only yesterday. She'd broke herself down, built herself back up, and moved on. There was nothing she could do about what happened, nothing she could change. But deep down, she'd never stopped looking. She looked for her in bottles of rum, she looked for her in the endless stars between the planets, in the endless void between the stars; she looked for her in the lava floes of Hephaestus and the ocean sunsets of Aquator, and she never stopped hoping that someday...

Well, someday, this would happen. It's never like how they write it in old songs, but Scarlett always found them hokey anyway. She's always known she's been weak when it comes to Nisha, but seeing her now drives home just how hopeless it all is. She never was strong enough to keep pushing on without knowing why she left, but she never could bring herself to give up on her, either. And the way her heart lodged in her throat at the sight of her tells her what she's always been afraid of: that she never was strong enough to hate Nisha for leaving her, and that she would take her back in a heartbeat.

Scarlett finds herself nearly at the top of the gully now, crouched just behind the rock outcropping of the plateau. She doesn't remember walking up here. She doesn't even remember why she came here in the first place. She's pretty sure this is where she saw Nisha headed—

And then a familiar male voice, gruff and raspy from years of smoking, reminds her. "Fire in the hole!"

Scarlett grits her teeth. Her father is somewhere up on that plateau. This might be the only chance she gets to have her revenge on him for taking her eye. But she's not sure she can do it, not right now, not after the stab in the heart from seeing Nisha's face again. How can she hope to focus? Can she really risk losing her again?

She sinks down to her knees, torn. She may never get this close to her father again, either. The man who abandoned her mother when he found out she was pregnant, the man who never made an effort to meet his own daughter. She never understood why Mum didn't want her to meet him until it was too late. She spent eighteen years wondering who the hell he was. It was a cruel twist of irony that he turned out to be somebody not worth knowing. Just a miserable, paranoid bastard who took her eye when he tried to kill her.

Well, maybe not _paranoid_, she supposes. Can't be paranoia if she really is out to kill him.

She pops her head up just for a second, long enough to get a glimpse of what's up there. Her father had his back turned to her, but she'd recognize that bushy orange beard anywhere. He was flanked by two familiar looking figures. One of them worked below deck, mainly guarded the brig. Fink. Creepy bastard with milky eyes, always wore a bandana. The other was the quartermaster, who could knock somebody out with a mean right hook just as easily as with his vile breath. Skag... something. Skagsuck? No. Well, nobody ever called him that to his face, at least. Skagtooth! Skagtooth Snyder. Must be the only two saps who were still loyal to him after he finally ended up losing his ship. The first mutiny is a tragedy, the second one is a farce.

She takes a deep breath, trying her damnedest to push Nisha from her thoughts.

Scarlett springs to her feet, braces her gun arm against the cuff of her hook, and fires. Her shot is true, the bullet driving straight through Skagtooth Snyder's right ear and into his head, dropping him to the ground. Fink and Nils wheel around to see their fellow pirate lying dead in the sand. Scarlett flashes a smile.

"Hello, Father!"

She rushes behind the nearest crates as Nils lets out an angry string of curses, firing ineffectually at her cover. She counts out two blasts from his shotgun, then pops out to counterattack. She doesn't land a single shot as he ducks behind a rock by the edge of the plateau. She takes a quick glance around before ducking down to reload.

An angry shout from Nils answers the question on her mind. "Fink, you coward, get back here!"

Scarlett lets out an amused snort. No wonder that rat bastard ran off at the first sign of trouble. It's a wonder he stayed with him this long. Dad must have some real dirt on him.

"You're all alone, Dad!" Scarlett shouts. She crawls around the side of the stack of crates, looking at the S&S assault rifle on the ground by Snyder's dead body. "Guess you're used to that by now, yeah?"

She waits with bated breath, dimly aware of the music blaring from the speakers above and the ambient gunfire from the lower levels of the gully. Nils lets out a laugh and shouts, "Surprised to see you survived that fall, girl!"

Scarlett focuses her bionic eye, but can't detect his heat signature behind the rock hiding him. "So stubborn I can't even die right! Mum always said I got that from you."

"Don't worry, I'll see that through to the end."

Scarlett catches a glimpse of a grenade lobbed into the air, heading towards her cover. Holstering Greed, she dashes out for the rifle, diving to the ground and grabbing it in her hand. She rolls forward onto one knee as the grenade explodes behind her. On cue, Nils pops out from behind the rock, and Scarlett holds down the trigger, bracing herself against the full-auto kick digging into her elbow. Nils immediately ducks back behind the rock, but she's sure she chipped his shield a few times. She smells blood. There can't be much room for him between that rock and a sheer drop to the lower level of the gully.

She grabs a magazine from the bag on Snyder's hip and reloads, then stalks forward, waiting for the slightest bit of movement from behind the rock.

Moxxi's voice rings musically over the loudspeaker. "Looks like Nils is between a rock and a hard place! Cutthroat combat right here, folks!"

Nils fires blindly around the corner of the rock, and Scarlett has to dodge to the side to avoid his follow-up shots. Her right foot collides with a rock, and she loses her balance, falling flat on her ass. She swears silently and holds her rifle up, aiming at the edge of the rock, waiting for Nils to show his face.

A bright flash from above catches her eye. Just a second later, a yellow streak in the sky grabs her attention, like a plummeting asteroid, growing larger by the second. Her jaw drops, and she rolls over, dropping her rifle, and starts scurrying forward in a blind panic.

The impact of the moonshot reverberates through the stadium like rolling thunder. The best cover nearby is a waist-high wall of sandbags. Scarlett dives to the ground behind them and covers her head. Seconds later, part of the Underdome's walls and bleachers – with a smattering of limbs of its spectators – start raining down into the arena. She chances another quick glance up at the sky. The Eye of Helios flashes again, and another mortar screams down through Pandora's atmosphere, then smashes into the stadium's outer wall. Screams break out from above in what remains of the bleachers, as the crowd parts from the smoldering crater left in the upper deck by the first moonshot.

Scarlett pokes her head over the sandbags, glancing at the rock her father was hiding behind. No sign of him. Down by the path leading down from the plateau, some of the competitors stare transfixed at the sky as Helios unleashes a third mortar strike. She can still hear gunfire coming from the lower levels. Scarlett sighs. Idiots. They surely can't still be expecting a payout?

A man's voice cuts in from the loudspeaker, oozing with affected charm. "Hey, Moxx. Love the whole bloodsport thing, big fan. Then I got to thinkin'... where's the fun if the audience is so removed from the action?"

Scarlett yelps and jumps back as a pair of legs with no torso attached splats into the ground in front of her.

"Heh. Brings a whole new meaning to the term 'spectator sport', right? Anyway. Hope to see ya _real _soon. Ciao for now!"

A third moonshot fires out of the Eye of Helios, colliding somewhere in the middle of the outer wall of the stadium. Scarlett springs to her feet in a crouch. Staying in here, she's as good as dead, but the only exit this high in the arena is blocked by an eight-foot pile of debris that was blown out of the bleachers. She takes a steadying breath, keeping low to the ground. The bandits over by the hill path seem to have the same idea she does, as the tallest one of the group waves his hand and leads the other two downhill.

She vaults the sandbags, pulling Greed from her holster, and stalks closer to the rock her father had taken cover behind. Her finger resting on the trigger, she pops around it, but the ledge is empty. She looks at the arena down below. A few of the Atlas escape pods have been knocked over by the impact of the moonshot, or by the falling concrete from above. A few fires have broken out by the perimeter.

Scarlett's bionic eye locks onto her father, below her and to her left. Either he was knocked off the ledge when the moonshot hit, or he jumped down, but either way, he clearly isn't interested in sticking around any longer. He fires his shotgun at a few advancing psychos as he makes his way down to the lowest level of the arena. It wouldn't be a pleasant fall, but she could jump down and be on him before he even knew what happened.

Nils unleashes a second blast, blowing a chunk of flesh off of a lumbering psycho's shoulder. A faded memory flashes before Scarlett's eyes, of her father when she was still part of his crew. A man who managed to inspire faith, or at least fear, in some of the vilest souls she'd ever met. Now all that remains of him is a hollow, desperate husk, fighting for his life in a blood arena. He had always told her everybody dies alone. In his case, she'll make sure he was right.

She bites her lip, trying to summon the courage to make the long jump down, when a familiar exasperated scream grabs her ear. "Goddamn skags!" Scarlett glances to her right. Nisha stands some thirty feet from the base of Moxxi's central tower, a revolver in each hand. The group of bandits Scarlett had ignored earlier advances on Nisha from the higher ground, while a pack of five skags comes at her from the lower. The alpha of the group leaps at her just as she fires off a shot. The bullet blasts through its open mouth, spraying blood out of the back of its head, killing it in mid-air. The skag's body collides with her, knocking her onto her back.

Scarlett doesn't so much as offer Nils a second glance as she takes a running start. The bandit leader advances on Nisha as she focuses on taking out the other skags dashing towards her. Scarlett fires two shots at the trailing bandits, striking them center mass. They both go up in flames, dropping their guns, screaming in panic. She plants her foot at the edge of the plateau and leaps as the bandit leader comes to a stop in front of Nisha and lifts his sledgehammer above his head, poised to strike.

Scarlett lands with a grunt behind him, driving the point of her hook down with a sickening crunch through the top of his skull. He crumples to the ground limp, his sledgehammer thumping into the dirt behind him. Scarlett yanks her hook out of his head. Blood drops in ribbons from the pointed tip.

She takes in a deep breath, standing up straight, looking down at Nisha. Nisha's mouth hangs open, her eyes moving from Scarlett's bloodied hook and back up to her face.

Scarlett offers her hand out to Nisha. "You ready?"

Nisha's eyes flick down to Scarlett's hand. She holsters a pistol and grabs it. "Always have been."

Scarlett pulls Nisha to her feet and allows herself a brief glimpse into her eyes, hard and determined. It's always how she pictured it might all end, with Nisha by her side as the world went up in flames. Scarlett takes in a deep breath and nods. It feels right. It feels like fate.

She and Nisha exchange a quick nod, and Nisha draws her other revolver once more. With that, Scarlett brushes past her. "We'll go past those escape pods and jump down to the exit below," she says, glancing back at Nisha, who nods. "Probably lots of mercs trying to get out that way, but it's either try and fight through all of them or hope this whole coliseum doesn't come down on our heads."

Nisha lets out a snort. "Won't be the first time I've been up against impossible odds."

They don't get far before a mortar smashes into the ground where they stood seconds ago. The deafening impact shakes the ground, knocking them both over. Scarlett lands hard on the ground, the side of her head colliding with a rock with a tooth-rattling thud. The ground spins beneath her as the impact point, just above her ear, pounds with a persistent, drilling pain. Scarlett coughs, dimly able to make out an oppressive groaning over the ringing in her ears. Scarlett winces as the groaning crescendos into the harsh squealing of rending metal. She glances to her left as the red tower in the center of the arena starts to topple. Nisha is already back on her feet. Her hand grabs the underside of Scarlett's arm, trying to pull her up, but in still moving forward, she loses her grip. Scarlett pushes herself ahead, trying to scramble to her feet, when the ground shakes again beneath her, and a crushing pain shoots through her right knee. As she screams out, Nisha turns around, grabbing onto Scarlett's wrist. "C'mon, we..." Her eyes go wide. "...oh, _shit!_"

Scarlett manages to focus through the pain enough to make out the stunned look on Nisha's face. "Is it bad?"

Nisha shakes her head, her mouth still hanging open. "It's not _good_!"

As Nisha steps over her, Scarlett looks back over her shoulder. A massive crimson steel I-beam, dislodged from the body of the central tower, lays flat over her right knee.

Nisha grabs onto the metal and screams out as she tries to slide it off, but it's too heavy to budge. Scarlett drops her head to the ground. Maybe she had it coming. Her own goddamn pride, her quest for revenge against her father. She turns her head to look up at Nisha, who stares back at her with calculating eyes. Scarlett tries to shake the haze from her head. "Nisha... I'm sorry."

Nisha makes eye contact with her for a second, her lips parted slightly, her brow furrowed down.

"I'm sorry for everything," Scarlett murmurs, gritting her teeth through the pain. If only she'd been the friend Nisha needed her to be. If only she hadn't left Eunomia to join her father's crew. If only she'd shown restraint that night Nisha let herself be vulnerable back on Peitho. If only, if only... "I didn't—"

"Shut up, Red," Nisha growls, leaning over and yanking Scarlett's bandana off her head, tearing her from her catastrophizing.

"What are you—"

Scarlett starts screaming as Nisha stoops to one knee and forces her hand under Scarlett's right thigh. A blinding pain spikes through her leg as her muscle fibers shred against her immobilized knee.

"I'm not leaving you to die like this," Nisha growls. She frantically glances around, then picks up a broken bit of black steel pipe by Scarlett's arm. She ties the ends of the bandana around the pipe, then twists it, cinching the makeshift tourniquet tight around Scarlett's leg.

Oh bloody hell, not _again_.

Scarlett whimpers, her vision blurring with each twist of the pipe, the fabric squeezing down harder and harder against her mangled leg. She lets out an agonized moan, trying desperately to ignore the fact that Nisha has the hint of a smile playing over her face. "_Hnnnnggggg_ are you _sure_ you know what you're doing?!"

Nisha shoots her a disapproving stare as she ties the ends of the scarf around the pipe, securing it in place. "Should I leave you here and go look for a doctor?"

Scarlett reaches a hand out. "No no!"

"Then quit your bitching. It's _me_."

_That's exactly what worries me. _Scarlett has to bite her tongue to stop herself from saying it. Nisha leans over Scarlett and pulls her saber from its scabbard on her hip. Scarlett groans, resenting the indignity of having to lose her leg to her own sword. "Okay, okay!" Her voice cracks, and she raises her hand. "Just, just count to three, yeah? Pl—"

Nisha forces her belt into Scarlett's mouth. "Sure, I'll count. Bite down, Red, this... this ain't gonna feel good."

Scarlett shuts her watering eye, teeth clamped on the leather, resting her forehead on her clenched fist. Her sword will certainly be sharp enough to do the job: she's seen that first-hand. And it'll be over so quickly. Not even a second. She inhales deeply. It'll be okay. Things are looking good.

"One!"

The end of what's left of Scarlett's leg rings out in crimson, ear-splitting agony. Her vision goes bright red against her tightly shut eyelids, and every muscle left in her body tenses up, impossibly tight. Everything below her knee feels like it's engulfed in fire. She digs her hands into the dirt and finds that she's at least able to wriggle forward.

Nisha's knee bears down on the back of her thigh, and Scarlett finds herself grateful for any other discomfort to focus on, a small reassurance that she hasn't been completely consumed by the pain.

"Sorry, Red, it's always worse when you're expecting it! Now hold still."

Scarlett cracks open her eye, and in her periphery, sees Nisha's gloved hand reaching for a bit of sheet metal, sitting in a small pile of flaming wreckage.

_Oh, bollocks. _The cauterizing. She'd forgotten about that bit. She forces herself not to look back.

The searing hot metal scorches the flesh at the end of her leg, blinding her in a flash of white. Her leg wriggles helplessly under the weight of Nisha's knee, and the unmistakable scent of barbecued meat mixed with the acrid stench of a sun-baked corpse scorches the hair in her nostrils. Maybe the only thing keeping her from blacking out is that she's already lived through one amputation, but much to her dismay, the second one isn't any less painful.

Just as the searing is about to overtake her, the pain starts dying down – a sign of her nerve endings being destroyed. The pressure releases from the back of her thigh, and her vision returns to a faded version of normal. Before she can collect herself, Nisha is already pulling her up, slinging Scarlett's good arm around her shoulders. Scarlett takes in a ragged breath, looking over at Nisha's graven face and determined eyes. "Thanks," Scarlett breathes. "For not leaving me."

"You can thank me when we're outta here, Scarlett." Nisha shoots a sideways glance at Scarlett, a wistful kind of confusion behind her eyes. She slips her arm around Scarlett's waist, wielding a bayoneted revolver in her free hand. With a sharp exhale, she turns her gaze forward to the path leading downhill towards the exit, facing the world crumbling to dust around them.

They both take a slow breath. Scarlett's remaining limbs tingle with adrenaline. The stabbing pain in her phantom right leg has downgraded from 'excruciating' to 'unbearable'. She adjusts her weight on her leg and glances over at Nisha. Sweat clings to Nisha's neck and the hollow of her collarbone. There's a light misting of blood on her jaw, and more splattered on her vest and duster. Scarlett tries not to think of how much of that blood is her own.

Nisha lets out a long breath and looks over at Scarlett, laying her hand on her waist. "C'mon. You ready?"

Scarlett flashes a weak smile at her, and holds tighter to her shoulder. "Always have been."


	3. Blood & Wine

Nisha had thought of visiting Scarlett as she recovered, but Nisha was never one for clinics. Too many unpleasant memories of her sister, the lingering scent of bleach and piss that permeated the halls, the sinister hiss of the respirator. That, and Scarlett had lost a lot of blood. Driving her from the wreckage of the Underdome to Nina's clinic on the outskirts was bad enough. She tried to keep her eyes on the dirt road, but her gaze always drifted back to Scarlett; her haphazardly bandaged stump propped up on the dashboard; her body slumped over against the window; her face ghoulish and pallid. She wasn't sure she'd be able to face looking at her lying in a cot, hooked up to an IV, wondering if that was the last time she'd ever see her.

She'd thought of leaving while Scarlett recovered, too. More than thought about it, even. She had made it about ten miles down the road before jerking the wheel into a sharp U-turn. Something in her told her she couldn't let that be her last memory of Scarlett.

Nisha strolls up to the cliffside boardwalk at the outer limits of town. It overlooks a wide stretch of desert valley shimmering under the setting Pandoran sun. She wonders why the hell Scarlett can't just drink in a bar like a normal person.

"Ah, the woman of the hour!" Scarlett beams up at her from her seat at the edge of the boardwalk, legs – _leg_, now – dangling over the edge of the wooden overlook. She picks up a bottle resting by her side, and pours into two glasses, one of them already half-full.

Nisha raises an eyebrow. Scarlett's color has returned. Nisha releases a tension in her shoulders she didn't realize she was carrying. A second look shows Scarlett's nose is a few shades redder than usual. "Hobbled out of the clinic barely a few hours ago, and you're already drinking."

Scarlett scoffs and brushes aside Nisha's comment with a wave of her hand. "Brilliant thing about losing a limb. Less blood in the alcohol system." With a bubbly giggle, she picks up a glass and holds it out to Nisha. "To saving each other's lives, yet again! By my count, I think I'm still up one."

Nisha takes a seat in a worn wooden rocking chair to Scarlett's side, then takes the glass from her outstretched hand. She'll let Scarlett have her moment for now, but by _her_ count, they're dead even.

After Scarlett takes a drink, she glances up at Nisha. "Always glad to have your company. Would've been nice to have it as I recovered in the clinic, though." She lowers her voice, though not so quiet that Nisha can't hear her. "Alone."

Nisha takes a sip of Scarlett's brandy, then absentmindedly rubs the crook of her elbow. She never was one for doctors' offices. Or needles, for that matter. But Nina had made it clear: Scarlett had lost a _lot_ of blood. She didn't even hesitate. O negative, universal donor. Something she'd learned when her sister got sick. She never figured she'd need, or even want, to use that knowledge again.

She clears her throat, glancing down at the glint where Scarlett's right knee used to be. Scarlett is rubbing the back of her thigh, just above the prosthetic. "Hope losing the second limb was easier than the first."

"Ah, what doesn't kill you hurts like a bitch." Scarlett lifts her right leg. The pant leg is cut off at mid-thigh, revealing the hunk of metal attached to her bandaged stump. A steel peg only a few inches around hangs from the artificial knee joint, ending in a small wedge for stability. "Rather gauche, isn't it?"

Gauche, maybe, but it fits her. Scarlett gingerly lowers her leg, and Nisha's gaze travels to the crutches beside her. "Take it you won't be off to try and mutiny yourself into captaining another ship anytime soon."

"I've got other things I should attend to, first."

_Other things_, sure. Despite her penchant for honesty, getting a straight answer out of Scarlett sometimes could be like pulling teeth. Or maybe amputating a limb. "Yeah, your dad's still out there, after all."

Scarlett tilts her head to the side. "Well, learning to walk again would top my list. Baby steps, you know." She chuckles at her own joke. "But, yes, I'll have to pay Daddy another visit at some point." Anybody who didn't know Scarlett would think she was planning a family reunion on Aquator.

"Sucks he got away. Must piss you off, seeing him slip between your fingers."

"A little bit. But it's not all that bad."

Nisha gives a sideways glance that Scarlett can't see. _Not all that bad?_ If this is Scarlett's idea of a plan going well, Nisha would hate to see one backfire.

"I mean, hell, you saw him. Erstwhile captain of the Scurvy Cur, legendary scourge of the outer reaches. Now he's fighting for pennies in gladiator combat?" Scarlett throws her head back and laughs. "Satisfying as I'm sure it would've been shooting that gold canine out of his mouth, that old bastard is ruined. And making him live in the shadow of his former glory, with no ship and no fear to his name? Oh, that's the _real_ victory, isn't it?"

Nisha hums to herself. Leave it to Scarlett to turn what anybody else would call a decisive failure into a moral victory. "Looked like he still had loyal followers."

"D'you mean those bell-ends he was fighting with?" Scarlett scoffs. "Skagtooth Snyder was his second mate, so he was run off the ship with him. And once I killed him, Fink couldn't turn tail fast enough. That rat was loyal to nobody. He and my father deserved each other." Scarlett stretches her arm over her head, then tops off her glass. "Until I run into him again, I've just got to adjust to life without _another_ limb."

"If he got outta that tinderbox alive, he might come and find you. 'Specially now he knows you came out of your last fight just missing an eye."

"Dunno why he would," Scarlett says, shaking her head. "I'm a derelict, too, remember? He doesn't stand to gain anything by killing me."

Nisha recalls the faded posters of Scarlett's smirking face adorning bounty boards back all over Holloran's Retreat. "I wouldn't be so sure."

"Please. My father would rather chase his lost glory than collect whatever pittance is on my head."

Scarlett would know better, Nisha supposes. Still, in her position, Nisha would be sleeping with one eye open. Maybe that's what the bionic one is for.

"So," Scarlett says with a dismissive shrug, "I'll let him languish in anonymity for a while. With any luck, he thinks I never made it out of the Underdome. So he'll never see me coming. If he lives that long."

Nisha frowns. It's unlike Scarlett to shrug off a botched murder attempt, or to be sidelined by a lost limb, but here she is, apathetic to her father living to see another day. Maybe her brush with death shook her more than she's letting on. "So until then..." Nisha knocks back the rest of her drink and sets the empty glass on the wooden deck. Both of them have danced around the heavy tension in the air long enough. "Where are you headed?"

Scarlett folds her hand and hook in her lap and quietly clears her throat. "Are you asking that because you expect me to leave, or because you _want_ me to?"

Nisha should have known coming out here would be a waste of time. "Does it matter?"

Scarlett shakes her head. "You know, after you risked your own ass to get me out of there, I actually convinced myself things could be different? Stupid."

If either of them is stupid, Nisha figures it's her. She had thought Scarlett might not wallow in self-pity and try to pass herself off as the victim. But she thought wrong. "Watch your back, Scarlett," she says, standing up. "Next time, I won't be there to pull your ass from the fire."

"What is the matter with you?" Scarlett starts pulling herself to her feet, an ungraceful process that discomforts Nisha to watch. She straightens up and braces herself against the guardrail overlooking the cliff. "After all the times I've been there for you." She jabs an angry finger towards Nisha. "After _you _stay behind to save _me,_ I can't believe you_— _Why even bother to save my life if you're just going to walk out on me like this? Why not just leave me to die?"

Nisha purses her lips. She thought she was ready to face her, to talk to her. She'd moved on from their night together on Peitho. Chased the horizon on whatever planet she ended up on. She'd always thought of what she might say to Scarlett if they ever met again. Some days, she thought she might kill her. Some days, that felt too easy, for all they've put each other through.

She'd always thought of what she might say to Scarlett, for all the years she'd resented her for killing her mother; for all the scars she showed her and for all the struggles they suffered together. For all the time she'd borne Scarlett's name like grief, and for all the time it took her to be able to adjust to life on her own. But her silence hangs in the air, and she's not sure she has the strength to get herself out from under its oppressive weight. It's not at all like she imagined. She'd always pictured herself collected, wiser and better for the time they had spent apart.

Her breaths come heavy and slow. This is too raw, too immediate. It's terrifying how after more than a year of being apart, all those old feelings have just come rushing back to the surface. She'd always pictured this would be like caressing the slightly rugged skin of an old scar. But it's more like jamming a finger into a fresh bullet wound.

"I'm tired of this, Scarlett." Nisha's voice is weak and raspy.

Scarlett lets her right shoulder slump as she lets out a sigh. She rests her hook against her hip. Her voice drips with bitterness. "Then why did you even come here? What do you want from me, Nisha?"

Nisha snorts. Damn good question. Maybe she's a glutton for punishment. Maybe she was born to lose. Maybe she was hoping Scarlett would have more to say to her, more to say about that apology she started back in the Underdome. Nisha was half-tempted to let her finish it, but even that wasn't worth dying for. And if hearing Scarlett apologize wasn't worth dying over, then putting herself through this again isn't worth killing herself over, either. She and Scarlett have been through this dance before, and Nisha knows every step. "Not wanting to see you dead ain't the same as wanting to drag myself through this again."

She catches a glimpse of Scarlett's eye widening as she turns to leave. "Don't you walk away from me, Nisha!" Scarlett shouts. Her voice quakes in anger. "DON'T YOU DARE TURN YOUR FUCKING BACK ON ME AGAIN!"

Nisha stops mid-stride as Scarlett's voice breaks at the last word. Her eyes narrow, and she spins around slowly, her mouth hanging open in disbelief. "_What_ was that?"

Scarlett is in the same spot as just a moment ago, standing rigid. Nisha can see her chest rise and fall even with some fifteen paces between them. "You heard me. If that night on Peitho was your idea of revenge for when I left Eunomia without you, then—"

"_Excuse_ me?" Nisha starts walking forward, taking slow, deliberate strides. The absolute gall. "Oh, you precious little bitch. You wanna chat about Peitho?" She stares daggers into Scarlett's eye, her voice dripping with rancor. She gives her a curt nod. "Let's _talk_."

"Oh, I would _love_ to—"

"Let's talk about how I invited you over after I found out Dad died." She keeps strolling forward, and brandishes a stiff finger towards Scarlett. "About how you came over and got me drunk—"

"Got _you_ drunk?!"

"—waited 'til I was vulnerable—"

Scarlett's face twists in anger. "That's not how it happened!"

Nisha keeps advancing, coming up to within an arm's length of Scarlett. She raises her voice over Scarlett's shouting. "You let me pour my fucking heart out into your lap, and then you took what you wanted, _didn't you_?!"

"STOP IT!"

Nisha recoils, her right cheek stinging from where Scarlett backhanded her. She runs her fingers along her jaw as she turns back to face Scarlett, her mouth agape.

Scarlett stands at her full height, chest heaving, glaring down her nose at Nisha. "_You_ got drunk. I drank with you. You were hurting and I wanted to _be_ there for you!"

Nisha straightens up, trying in vain to make up for Scarlett's height advantage. "You expect me to believe that?"

"You kissed me back!" Scarlett hisses. "_You_ asked _me_ if I wanted it! How dare you?! Do you really think that's how I would've wanted my first time with you to go?"

Nisha raises her eyebrows, and Scarlett briefly glances away, knowing she's said too much. Awfully presumptuous of her to call it their _first_ time. But Nisha can't say she doesn't have a point, either. That was far from the first time they'd gotten drunk together. Far from the first time Nisha had found herself pulled back into the past and reaching out to Scarlett as she worked through it.

"I fell asleep that night happier than I'd ever been in my life." Scarlett takes a half step towards Nisha, leaving little more than a hand's breadth between them. "Imagine how I felt when I woke up to an empty bed."

Nisha snorts. She doesn't have to imagine, exactly. She hasn't thought about the day Scarlett left Eunomia to find her father in a long time, but she's far from forgotten it. "Sucks, don't it?"

"'Sucks'? Is that all you have to say for yourself?" Scarlett scoffs and shakes her head. "You left me with nothing but your name echoing through the emptiness that you abandoned me in! Do you have _any_ idea how long I looked for you? How many times I tried calling you, how many old contacts of ours I checked in on just to see if they'd heard a whisper of where you might've been last? My best friend, vanished like a puff of smoke. And just like smoke, I could see you everywhere I went. I'd think of you and you'd get caught in my lungs and you'd sting my eyes, and I could never wash the memory of you away.

Scarlett's face softens, and she lets out a sigh that sounds just as tired as she looks. "I guess I always knew that you meant more to me than I ever meant to you. I knew that the day after I killed your mum. Thought I was okay with it. But fine. I get it. If you really are going to walk away, you might as well just throw me off this cliff first."

Nisha steps into Scarlett before she's even made the conscious decision to do so. Scarlett's eye widens as Nisha grabs her by the collar. She leans her backward over the railing. Grains of dust fall as the old, sun-bleached wood lets out a groan of protest. "You're too melodramatic for your own good, Red."

Scarlett's usual disguise, equal parts familiar and infuriating, is painted on her face: a lopsided smile, a pointed canine sunk into her bottom lip. Mischief glows in her eye, flickering between Nisha's hard stare and her pursed lips. "And you're too impulsive." Scarlett whispers, her chest heaving with each slow breath.

"You got some mouth on you, Red." Nisha lets out a sharp snort, but pulls Scarlett up straight all the same. It would be easy to throw her over. Should be easy, anyway. But Nisha knows she can't do it. Just like she couldn't leave her pinned under that beam. The look of calm in Scarlett's eye tells Nisha that she's not the only who knows it, either. "And please, don't take that the wrong way."

"I don't think there is a wrong way to take that," Scarlett says, running her fingers through her hair. "Anyway, your histrionics aside, you still haven't answered my question."

She tilts her head to the side. "What question?"

"Why are you here?"

She shakes her head. She's been wondering that since she got here. Something between loyalty and guilt, she thinks. "I dunno, Red. Why are _you_ here?"

Scarlett lets out an amused hum as she looks Nisha up and down. "Odd question, considering I'm not the one running away. In any case, I realized something, back at the Underdome, when I saw my father."

Nisha rolls her eyes. Here we go. Everything always comes back to Scarlett's relationship with her father. What else could she have been expecting? They both knew that shit-sack Eunomia was too small a planet for either of them. Scarlett just had the luxury of leaving to join her father's crew.

Dirt grinds against the graying wood as Nisha steps up to the boardwalk. She leans forward, resting her forearms on the railing. "Maybe it's better you didn't kill him." She spits off the side of the cliff. "Not as easy to blame all your problems on him if he's dead. Though I doubt that'd stop you from trying."

Scarlett leans one arm on the rail, facing Nisha. Nisha avoids her stare, keeping her gaze focused straight ahead on the golden horizon. "I could've killed him, y'know. I had my chance, after the moonshots started landing. He started running as soon as the explosions and debris started raining down. I could've followed him and ended it right there. In all the chaos, he wouldn't have had a prayer."

"Bullshit. If you had the chance, you would've taken it."

Scarlett shakes her head. "Surely you must have seen him. My father once lead a crew of a hundred of the worst brigands and derelicts you've ever had the displeasure of meeting. But in that moment, I saw him for what he _really_ was. Running for his life, abandoned by everybody who once might have felt some sort of loyalty towards him. He's every bit the man my mother told me he was. Never met somebody he couldn't betray, swindle, or murder. He'd rather put his boot on somebody's back than take the hand being offered to him. D'you want to know what I saw when I looked at him?"

Nisha's lower jaw juts forward as she purses her lips. "That the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree?"

"Me? Please." Scarlett lets out a clipped laugh and shakes her head. "I saw _you_."

A frown tugs at Nisha's lips. She can feel the heat and weight of Scarlett's stare, but she won't bring herself to return it.

"I chose him over you when I left Eunomia. When I saw you, skags on one side, bandits on the other, I realized I was about to make the same mistake." Scarlett glances down and clears her throat. "So I left him behind. I came for you."

Nisha lets her eyes trail down to the expanse of desert below, over the winding canyons, half steeped in shadow from the orange haze of the setting sun.

"I saw that look in your eyes when I jumped down beside you. Bewilderment with a dash of gratitude." She lets out a small laugh. "I think you forgot you were still supposed to be mad at me."

Nisha's gaze falls down to her hands, fingers interlaced together. At least before today, she hadn't been mad at Scarlett in a long time. She's pretty sure she would've taken anybody's help in the chaos back there, but she probably wouldn't have preferred anybody over Scarlett. Hell, she probably had a better chance of surviving alongside Scarlett with two limbs than anybody else with all four.

"I won't ever make that mistake again, Nisha," Scarlett says. "I promise you that."

The sky at the horizon shines a rich, bright orange, before fading to pink above, and ultramarine further beyond that. Rows of clouds, cast in a peach glow from the setting sun beneath, dot the sky, softening the evening glow. Nisha glances over at Scarlett, who's turned her gaze towards the cliffs below. Her tan seems deeper in this light. Or maybe that's just compared to how pallid she was last time Nisha saw her. Nisha clears her throat and glances ahead once more. "So where does this leave us?"

"Dunno why you're asking me," Scarlett says, tilting her head to the side and absent-mindedly chipping at the wood railing with her hook. "You were the one who was ready to walk away. So I suppose you can repeat your vanishing act, if you like."

Nisha chuckles to herself. If she couldn't leave Scarlett behind with a half-ton I-beam crushing her leg, if she couldn't bring herself to drive away while Scarlett was unconscious in a bed in Nina's clinic, she sure as hell can't leave like this. Something about the shadow of a smirk playing at the corner of Scarlett's mouth tells Nisha that she knew that already. Something tells her Scarlett knew that back in the Underdome, as soon as she started making that tourniquet, while she was still blubbering out her apology.

"Hey, uh..." She clears her throat and straightens up, glancing over at Scarlett. "What'd you mean back there? At the Underdome. When you told me you were sorry for everything."

Sunlight bounces off the polished surfaces of Scarlett's hook as she twirls it. She keeps her eye down and brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry for never being the friend you wanted me to be. For killing your mum instead of building you up so you could do it yourself. Take your pick, I've got plenty."

Nisha quirks an eyebrow. "And Peitho?"

A wan smile spreads over Scarlett's face. "I regret what came of it. But I don't regret what we did together. I spent a long time dreaming of what that night would be. I spent a long time wishing for more. To get to feel the warm embers of your eyes again, to touch where the sun-weathered umber of your skin runs pale. You made me forget everything else with just your smile and your curiosity."

A flush of heat runs to Nisha's cheeks. She glances away, hiding the telltale glow.

"So... no, I don't exactly regret _that_." Scarlett clears her throat. "I've got plenty to apologize for, but never that."

For a year, most of that night only existed as dull echoes in Nisha's mind. But ever since she laid eyes on her in the Underdome, memories long since forgotten have come flooding back to her. The slow, reverential way Scarlett's hands – she glances sideways at her hook, but yes, it was _hands_ back then – brushed over her skin. The desperation and hunger in her kisses, the peculiar rasp to her voice when she whispered her name. Standing beside her now, the memories crash harder as she smells Scarlett's aroma of sandalwood and citrus. Her knuckles whiten against the wood. She can remember kissing the tattoos all over her body. She can remember her fingers tangled in Scarlett's thick red hair, and not caring if she ever got them out.

"Sorry?" Scarlett's voice yanks her back into the present.

Nisha's eyes snap open. "Huh?"

"Sounded like you said 'You don't have to'..."

Nisha blinks. She can remember feeling the regret the morning after, but it's distant, formless. It is nothing compared to the much more immediate memories of Scarlett's body pressed against her own. Thinking back, she's not sure it ever was Scarlett that she was mad at. Maybe she was just disappointed with herself.

She was trapped, back when her mother was still alive. The old scars on her arms, from cigarette burns and broken glass; the claustrophobia of the locked closet; the degradation of her mother telling her nobody could ever love her. Telling her that once Scarlett got what she wanted out of her, she'd ditch her by the roadside like the trash she is. She vowed to herself she'd never let herself become trapped like that again. She enslaved herself to the road, letting her feet carry her wherever they would, her eyes always fixed forward, sure that whatever answers she was looking for must lay just beyond the horizon.

For all the light-years she burned up, all the planets she'd set her boots on, it must say something that the road led her straight back to Scarlett.

For all the regret she choked on for not being the one to kill her mother, and all the shame she bore for knowing her mother was right when she said she was too damn weak to fight back, the one who let her find her strength was Scarlett.

For the nine months it's been since her last cigarette, the only thing she finds harder to quit is Scarlett.

For all the sunsets they spent walking down the railroad tracks back on Eunomia, all the blood they'd spilled for each other, and all the chances forever lost to her, the one who's kept her hope alive is Scarlett.

For the year she's spent on her own feeding her stubborn pride, for the hungover mornings she stared at her tired eyes in the mirror dreading that she'd lose in the end, for the nights she spent convincing herself she was better off alone... she came for Scarlett.

Nisha lets out a shuddering sigh, glancing over to see Scarlett drinking straight from her bottle of brandy. Scarlett sets the bottle down as Nisha turns to face her, looking up into her pale blue eye. People like them should stand no chance. She knows Scarlett is the only reason she ever survived her mother. Maybe she is the thing that's kept Scarlett alive. "I'm sorry, Red." Her mouth is dry, her voice is huskier than she expected. She clears her throat. "I didn't—"

"Nisha."

Nisha trails off, glancing off towards the canyon below, willing her eyes to stop watering. She takes a slow breath and looks back up at Scarlett, who smiles back down at her, head tilted to the side, a gentle breeze sweeping her hair away from her face.

"Shut the fuck up and kiss me."

Nisha steps into Scarlett, taking her cheeks in her hands, pouring all her passion, all her doubt, and all her regret into a desperate kiss. Scarlett's mouth is hot on hers, the metal of her lip ring a sharp contrast to her soft lips. The tip of Scarlett's hook digs into the small of Nisha's back. Nisha presses her body into Scarlett, the longing, the need building deep inside of her. She is in freefall. It should be terrifying, but it's not. It's familiar. It's exhilarating. Life-affirming. She is in freefall, but Scarlett will be waiting to catch her at the bottom.

The memories of Peitho come crashing back in waves that knock the breath out of her. The minutes went on for hours and the night lasted an eternity. Scarlett straightens up, pulling away from the kiss, laying her hand flat on Nisha's chest. Nisha looks from her eye back down to her mouth. Starving for Scarlett's kisses, she leans in, but Scarlett leans back, a teasing smile on her face.

Scarlett tilts her head down, touching her forehead to Nisha's. "We should get back to my room before we start doing it on the boardwalk. I'm just down the street."

Nisha bites the inside of her cheek, surprising herself by letting out a pitiful moan. "I don't know if I can wait that long, Scar."

Flashing a devious grin, Scarlett takes her by the hand. She turns and starts hobbling along on her new leg, pulling Nisha behind her. Nisha rolls her eyes, lets go of Scarlett's hand, and puts her hand to her shoulder, spinning her around.

Scarlett lets out a whoop as Nisha bends down, wrapping her arm around Scarlett's thighs and lifting her up, resting Scarlett's hip on her shoulder. Scarlett lets out a giddy laugh as Nisha carries her down the road in swift strides. A devilish grin crosses Nisha's face as she uses her free hand to smack Scarlett's ass. She pays no heed to the gawkers in the street.

She throws open Scarlett's bedroom door and leans forward, letting Scarlett drop onto the mattress. Scarlett takes off Nisha's hat and tosses it onto a chair in the corner of the room before moving on to her duster. Nisha shrugs it off and sets on untying the lacing on the back of Scarlett's corset. "Oughtta just tear you outta this damn thing," Nisha breathes, leaning in for a kiss.

Scarlett moans, fumbling with the buttons on Nisha's vest. Her lips smack as she tilts her head to the side. "At least you've got two bloody hands."

Nisha lets out a chuckle and sucks on Scarlett's neck as she pulls her vest off. She glances down as something heavy thunks on the floor. Scarlett's metal leg lies on the gray shag carpet. Scarlett scoots back on the bed, her right hand fumbling with the socket of her hook. Nisha purses her lips. Maybe once they get their clothes off, she can convince her to put that hook back on.

She kneels on the ground, unbuckling her own boots before starting on Scarlett's. She pauses as Scarlett leans over to set her hook on the end table. She looks at what remains of Scarlett's left forearm. On the inside, by the crook of her elbow, is a tattoo of a single lavender rose. Nisha quirks an eyebrow. "What's that?"

Scarlett blinks, looking from Nisha to her tattoo. "Oh. Nothing. Just something I wear for myself. A reminder not to take anything for granted." Scarlett dips her chin to her chest.

"Uh huh." Nisha smirks, pulling off Scarlett's boot and letting it drop to the floor with a thud. "For yourself, huh?"

Scarlett snorts and pushes Nisha's face away with her bare foot. "If I were trying to impress _you_ with it, I could think of about a half dozen places I'd put it before my stump."

Nisha leans her head back, letting out a sigh as Scarlett slides her soft, sweat-kissed foot down along her neck. Her pulse pounds, the aching need to feel Scarlett against her building to a fever pitch. Scarlett unzips her top, revealing a simple black briefer, her albatross tattoo peeking out from underneath. Nisha pulls her boots off, then crawls forward onto the bed, lying on Scarlett's legs, her hands finding the buckle of Scarlett's belt.

"Nisha..." Scarlett's hand lays on top of hers. "Promise me something."

"Anything." Nisha looks up into Scarlett's eye, her slow, heavy breaths hanging in the air.

"Promise me you'll be here when I wake up."

Nisha blinks. She lays her hands on either side of Scarlett's waist, slides forward, and plants a soft kiss on Scarlett's lips. She pulls apart, but only just, so that her lips brush against Scarlett's as she whispers. "I come crawling back like this and you think I'm strong enough to leave again?"

Scarlett whimpers as she slides her hand underneath Nisha's crop top, up her back. "Nisha..."

Nisha nods. Scarlett needs her to say it. She needs to say it. "I'm not goin' anywhere, Scarlett. I promise." She leans down, kissing Scarlett deeper, needing to taste more of her. She couldn't leave if her life depended on it. "I want this. I want you. Wish I knew how after all this time... how I _need_ you this bad."

A suggestive chuckle spills from Scarlett's lips. "I know why. Figured that one out a long time ago."

Nisha pulls apart, her fingers tracing down the length of Scarlett's neck. "That right?"

Scarlett's eye, hotter than any sun, burns with desire. "Because once you've tasted blood, wine just seems so _thin_."

Nisha narrows her eyes, a grin slowly spreading over her lips. She lets out a dark, quiet laugh and loses her fingers in Scarlett's hair.

"I suppose that's not all, though," Scarlett murmurs, brushing the backs of her fingers down over Nisha's cheek.

Nisha tilts her head to the side, watching the mischievous flicker in Scarlett's eye. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I love you, you pillock." Scarlett brushes her fingers along Nisha's cheek, and Nisha closes her eyes at the contact. "Like an oasis in the desert. Like the jolt of adrenaline from getting shot. Like the headrush from the first breath after you've been nearly strangled to death. I love you because you love me in a way nobody else can."

Scarlett's fingertips brush over the shell of Nisha's ear. Nisha opens her eyes to look down at her. It wasn't long ago that she would have bristled at Scarlett saying those words. But not now. She drinks in the sight of Scarlett underneath her: Scarlett, as hard as the steel that makes up most of her right leg and left arm, as soft as the warm caress of her thumb on Nisha's lower lip. She'd realized it back when she made up her mind to get Scarlett out of the Underdome, with or without her leg. Even if she can only admit it now. "How's that?"

Scarlett grins back at her, pulling her down into a slow, deep kiss. Nisha swallows a groan and arches her back. Her hand finds the buckle on Scarlett's belt as they pull apart. Scarlett beams with desire. Plunging her fingers through Nisha's hair, she whispers her answer:

"Mercilessly."

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

"I would have drowned twice to save you sinking, dear, if I could only have covered your eyes so you wouldn't have seen the water."

— Emily Dickinson


End file.
